


time cast a spell on you

by vacantstars



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s15e07 Last Call, F/M, First Kiss, Getting Together, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vacantstars/pseuds/vacantstars
Summary: “I guess it’d be nice to not be a cosmic punchline, for once,” Sam says.“Maybe we don’t always have to be.” Optimism isn’t really her style, but she’ll try. For him. “Eventually, the joke won’t be funny anymore.”Hunters lose people. That doesn't mean it always has to be that way.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, past Lee Webb/Dean Winchester - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	time cast a spell on you

Eileen has always had trust issues.

Then again, she’s pretty sure that’s almost a universal standard for hunters. The guy flirting with you at a bar or trying to help you on the case could be this week’s vamp. He could be dead tomorrow. Usually, it’s some combination of the two. And then, if you get lucky enough to meet someone who actually knows about the life, they get themselves killed or worse before you even get a chance to say good-bye.

So, yeah. She never really did the whole _friends_ thing. It wasn’t her style. At least, not until Sam.

Sweet, dorky Sam Winchester. The same Sam Winchester who’s now basically comatose— _or worse,_ her mind helpfully supplies— because he was just trying to help.

She’s not sure how long it’s been since he first passed out. All she knows is that she hasn’t moved from her chair since then and gently keeps dabbing at his forehead with a washcloth. Is he feverish? Honestly, she doesn’t know. Divine bullet wounds are way above her paygrade, and not even the resident angel seems to have any answers.

In short, she feels powerless. It’s not something she’s felt since…well, the less she thinks about Hell, the better. But even before that, she remembers going through almost this exact same thing with Lillian during her final days, when she had been the only one there at her deathbed because all of their other hunting friends were dead. The only family she’d ever known, gone just like that. There was nothing she could do about it, either; no monsters to shoot, no lore to dig through. Cancer is a beast all in its own.

After Lillian died, she kept drifting from town to town, hunting that banshee because she didn’t know anything else. Then along came the Winchesters, the banshee was dead, and Eileen suddenly found herself unsure of what to do for the first time in her life. And now finally, _finally_ , when she finds the one person she can maybe have a future with, the universe conspires to take him away, too.

“Sam,” she says, even though she knows he can’t hear her. “Please wake up.”

Nothing.

* * *

_The “being a ghost really sucked” margaritas, for the record, weren’t her idea. Or maybe they were. She kind of doesn’t remember anymore. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Point is, celebratory alcohol is celebratory alcohol._

_They’ve both had more than a few to drink and are swapping hunting stories when Sam launches into one about that time his brother came down with something called “ghost sickness."_

_“Then a cat jumps out of the locker and he just…screams,” he says, “for like ten seconds. And then he turns to me and goes, ‘That was scary!’”_

_They both laugh at that. Eileen almost chokes on her drink._

_“It’s always been like that?” she asks, once they calm down. “Just you and Dean?”_

_“Pretty much.” Sam shrugs a little. “I mean, I did try to leave the life, once. A long time ago. It didn’t work out.”_

_“Stanford?” she guesses. He’d mentioned that before, when they first met._

_“Yeah. I thought…I dunno.” Sam sobers a little. “I thought I really had a chance at normal, you know? I had a girlfriend. Jessica. She got killed by the thing that killed my mom, and that was it. Even if you try to leave, there’s always something pulling you back.”_

_She reaches out and lays a hand on his. This time, it doesn’t go through. He smiles, just a little._

_“I guess it’d be nice to not be a cosmic punchline, for once,” Sam says._

_“Maybe we don’t always have to be.” Optimism isn’t really her style, but she’ll try. For him. “Eventually, the joke won’t be funny anymore.”_

* * *

A tap to her shoulder pulls her out of her thoughts, and she nearly jumps until she sees a familiar blue tie out of the corner of her eye.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel speaks as he signs. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” she says, running a hand through her hair. For an angel, he’s apparently quite good at coming in when he’s least expected. Maybe he has some sort of sixth sense.

“Has he changed at all?” Castiel asks.

“No,” she says, signing as well, then tilts her head slightly. “You sign?”

_“I know every language humanity has ever created.”_ He almost smiles. _“Including how to sign.”_

Eileen supposes that makes about as much sense as everything else that’s happened today, so she nods a little before absentmindedly wiping at Sam’s brow again. Castiel walks over to the opposite side of the bed and looks down at his friend, his expression somehow both concerned and unreadable.

_“I called an…acquaintance of mine.”_ He presses his lips into a thin line. _“He’ll help.”_

_“And if he doesn’t?”_

_“He will. I’ve made sure of that.”_

Castiel takes his phone out of his pocket and frowns at the screen. For an angel of the Lord, he strikes her as being very…human.

“Your friend?” she asks.

“No.” He’s still frowning. “Dean hasn’t responded to any of my messages.”

“He didn’t say where he was going before he left.”

Castiel grumbles something that she can’t quite make out. It seems like it was mostly to himself, though, so she doesn’t ask him to repeat it. Instead, she goes back to focusing on Sam, even though she knows full well that nothing’s going to change for the time being. 

Neither of them speaks again until she says, “I thought about looking for you, you know. When I was a ghost.”

_“I know.”_ Castiel’s expression softens. He looks like a kicked puppy. _“I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”_

_“It’s okay.”_ She offers him a small smile. _“We found another way.”_

The angel tries to return it, but he still looks sad. _“Sam and Dean always do.”_

* * *

Castiel leaves go make another phone call before too long, so she and Sam are left alone again. He hasn’t moved, and his pulse is slow. His skin is cold to the touch.

“If you die now,” she tells him, “I’m gonna kill you.”

Sam doesn’t stir. Eileen puts the washcloth on the bedside table and takes his hand instead.

“I used to think that hunters didn’t…that we just hunt alone, then we die. Probably really badly. That’s what happened to me, the first time.” She absentmindedly strokes the back of his hand with her thumb. “But now that I have this second chance, I don’t want to waste it. I don’t want to make the same mistakes I did before. I want to stay here. With you.”

It’s straight out of a Hallmark movie and way more emotionally vulnerable than she usually lets herself be, but it’s the truth. Dying alone in the woods provides a shocking amount of perspective, and she’s had more than enough time to think about the fact that maybe she doesn’t always have to fly solo; not if she has a partner who gets it.

And, well, no one’s _gotten it_ as much has Sam has. Sam, who’s only ever treated her as his equal, who nearly got himself killed by witches to bring her back, who learned how to sign just to speak to her, and who’s as deeply entrenched in this life as she is. The first person she’s ever let herself maybe think about having a different life— one that involves less monsters and demons and hellhounds— with. She’s lost enough. She refuses to lose that, too.

One more win. That’s all she can ask for.

* * *

When Sam finally wakes and sits up on the cot, she feels like she can breathe again.

* * *

They don’t get a moment alone until Castiel quietly slips out of the infirmary and Dean not long after him (though not without first winking at Sam, to which he rolls his eyes). She can’t help but notice the deliberate way in which Dean seems to wait for the angel to get enough of a head start on him, and the way he awkwardly stands there as though he’s listening for his footsteps. There’s something going on between those two for sure, and neither of them look too happy about it. 

“Are they…okay?” she asks, once Dean’s out the door.

“I don’t know,” Sam replies, frowning. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten the memo on his brother’s fight.

“Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” He rests his hand on her thigh and signs back, _“You?”_

_“Me?”_ She blinks, furrowing her brow and signing as she speaks. Only Sam Winchester would be concerned about someone else’s well-being after his own near-death experience. “You’re the one who almost died an hour ago.”

“I got better,” he replies, smiling just a little.

Eileen chuckles a bit and shakes her head. “Touché. But don’t ever do that again.”

Sam gently squeezes her knee. Hunters can’t make any promises; they both know that. One or both of them could die tomorrow, or the day after that. Given that they’re fighting the big guy himself now, all bets are off. There are no guarantees anymore, but the feeling of him sitting next to her on the cot is at least something of a reassurance.

Speaking of public enemy number one… “Did you mean it?” she asks. “Do you think we can beat _God?_ ”

“I do.” He looks as sure as she’s ever seen him. “Chuck’s weak. He’s desperate. And I’m done playing a game that’s rigged against us. From now on, we’re making our own rules.”

“Like?”

Sam hesitates. For a second, she thinks he’s going to bolt or maybe pass out again. But after a few seconds pass, he does neither of those things. Instead, he takes her hand in one of his and with the other, nervously signs, _“rain check.”_

She’s not sure which one of them leans in first. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Sam’s lips are warm against hers, and there’s a promise in them that he couldn’t make before. _Stay,_ he says. _Stay here with me. We’ll win this._

Optimism isn’t really her style. Maybe now, it could be.

* * *

Dean’s ready to down about three bottles of whiskey and forget this entire day even happened when Cas wordlessly appears in the war room and slides a beer across the table to him. It’s unexpected, but not unwelcome, so he grunts out a “thanks.”

If he was too ashamed of himself to meet Cas’ eyes before, he definitely can’t now. Not after Lee.

Lee. The name still sends a painful ache through his chest every times he thinks about it.

Even after he’d gotten Cas’ voicemails about Sam and drove back to the bunker so fast he probably should’ve gotten five or six speeding tickets for it, he still can’t stop replaying his final confrontation with his….friend? Former friend? Former…. _whatever_ Lee was to him over and over again in his mind. He’s pretty sure the feeling of that pool cue going straight through Lee’s gut will haunt him for the rest of his life, and dammit, he _likes_ playing pool. 

But seeing Lee again had dredged up a lot of memories and feelings he thought he’d buried years ago, under the John Winchester brand of machismo he’d needed to get by. Years ago, he hadn’t thought it was weird at all that he and Lee used to get drunk on cheap booze while his father was out and maybe kiss a little just to see what it was like. Guys did that sometimes. It was fine. Dean could still say he was straight, no problem. No reason at all to bring that up in front of Dad.

Except now, he knows better. He knows Lee wasn’t just his friend, as much as they might’ve pretended otherwise. He’s dead now, though, so it doesn’t matter anymore. Dead, because of Dean. Dead, because he poisons everything he touches and everyone around him goes away in the end. He can’t have just _one good thing_ without ruining it. It’s the same reason Cas walked out the door and hasn’t even looked at him since. Part of him is angry. The other part wants to tell Cas that he should’ve put as much distance as he could’ve between him and his bullshit years ago. Then, there’s somehow a third part of him that hates himself even more than usual for stabbing Cas with a metaphorical pool cue in the first place.

In short, Dean feels like he’s drowning in his own head, and there’s nothing in the immediate vicinity for him to break. Getting drunk on old booze only gets you so far.

Cas, however, is still standing there. “You looked like you needed that,” he says, motioning to the beer. Then he turns to leave again.

“Cas,” Dean says before he can stop himself. 

To his amazement, the angel actually stops. He doesn’t turn around, though, because of course he doesn’t. 

“Are you, uh.” Dean clears his throat. “Sticking around?”

“For the time being.” Cas glances over his shoulder. “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

_I never wanted you to leave in the first place,_ Dean wants to say. _You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but I just keep pushing you away because I’m too much of a coward to do anything else. I can’t let you be another Lee. I can’t._

Instead, he makes a frustrated noise and says none of that. “Cas, c’mon,” is what comes out in its place.

“I’ll try not to ruin anything else while I’m here, I assure you,” the angel says tonelessly, and impossibly, the hunter hates himself even more.

Dean isn’t sure what possesses him to get up and grab Cas’ sleeve like he does. It’s as if his body is moving without his permission, or it’s the subconscious part of himself that’s been drawn to Cas since the moment he stepped into that barn. Whatever it is, he’s standing there with a handful of trenchcoat and Cas’ eyes suddenly on him. For a moment, neither of them breathes, and not just because he’s pretty sure Cas doesn’t have to.

“You aren’t the one who screwed up today,” he manages. He can’t bring himself to meet Cas’ impossibly blue eyes, or even elaborate. If makes himself talk about it, now, to the person who’s always managed to sleep past his walls, he’s gonna lose it. It’s the closest he can come to asking for comfort, even though he knows that he in no way deserves it. Not from the person he’s recently hurt the most.

There’s a silence that seems to drag on forever. Then, something about Cas’ stance seems to soften.

“You’re hurt,” he says.

“Wha—”

“Let me,” Cas says, and before Dean has time to respond, he brings his free hand up to his forehead. Normally, when he does this, he’ll press two fingers there or even cradle his face, but this time, he doesn’t. His hand hovers an inch or two away, and Dean can’t help but notice the grimace he makes when attempting to use his grace. It vanishes just as quickly, though, as does his cut and the lingering headache that accompanied it.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Dean says. “Your mojo—”

“—Is fading regardless,” the angel interrupts in a clipped tone. “If I’m going to lose it, I should at least have a say in how I do.”

“I ain’t worth you depowering yourself, Cas,” he says quietly. “I’m not.” _Not after what I said to you. Not after I ruined all the people I love._

Cas drops his hand, and Dean’s heart gives an embarrassing leap when his fingers brush the fist he’d clenched at his side. “It’s my choice, Dean.”

Suddenly, he’s brought back to a few months after Sam had left for Stanford and he and Lee had holed up in a motel room just outside of Wichita while his dad was off brooding somewhere and probably shooting something. They’d swiped a few beers from the fridge and had gotten tipsy, but not drunk enough to not remember anything the morning after yet. Maybe he’d just hoped he’d forgotten it, in the wake of everything else.

“Your dad seems pretty pissed,” Lee had said. “Guess he didn’t take Sam leaving well, huh?”

“Nah.” Dean shrugged and took another sip of beer. He was definitely buzzed. “You shoulda seen it. I thought heads were gonna start flying. I haven’t seen Dad get that mad since he caught us in that club outside of Vegas.”

Lee snorted. “Good for him.”

“Who? Dad?”

“No. Sam. This life?” Lee gestured around them. “It gets you dead. Or worse. Stanford? Sam will get a life. A family. Kids. All that shit that was never in the cards for us.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You want that?”

“No. Maybe. Sometimes.” Lee bumped his shoulder. “Just something to think about when it’s the nightmares keeping you awake.”

“Morbid, dude.”

“Look, I’m just saying,” Lee said, raising his hands up, “that maybe Sam’s choice wasn’t the worst thing he coulda done for himself. Sometimes we gotta do things for ourselves, y’know? Live our own lives. That’s all.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean gave a half-smile. “Trying telling that one to Dad.”

“No, thanks.”

Lee slid him another beer after that, and Dean can’t remember if that night was the first time they’d experimented with kissing. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But Lee had spoken about choices, then, as if just a few months later he wasn’t going to make one that would leave him no better than the monsters they hunted just because he wanted an out. It would be the same choice that led him on a path that Dean definitely wasn’t willing to follow him down or allow to continue. 

And then there’s Cas, who always makes the choice to stay, even when he shouldn’t, and giving him second and third and fourth chances that he doesn’t deserve.

“Cas, just…” He pauses, trying to find the words. “Take care of yourself. It’s…good to hear your voice, man.”

If Dean didn’t know any better, he’d swear he could feel the angel’s fingers brushing against his again.

_“Sometimes we gotta do things for ourselves, y’know?”_ Lee had said.

Maybe it’s about time that he told God to shove it and start making his own choices, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a little bit late to the coda party for this episode, but hey, I got it done.
> 
> I just kept thinking about how Dean and Eileen keep losing the people they love, and thus, this was born. I'm still sad about Dean having to kill his ex.


End file.
